Paediatrician struck off

A senior paediatrician whose misleading testimony led to a mother being wrongfully jailed for the murder of her two baby sons was today struck off the medical register.

The General Medical Council (GMC) found Professor Sir Roy Meadow, 72, guilty of serious professional misconduct for giving evidence beyond his expertise at the trial of solicitor Sally Clark.

Prof Meadow, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatricians, is now barred from practising medicine in the UK.

Prof Meadow wrongly stated in Mrs Clark's trial in 1999 that there was just a "one in 73 million" chance that two babies from an affluent family like hers could suffer cot death. The actual odds were only one in 77.

The GMC fitness to practise panel said in its verdict that Prof Meadow had failed in his duty to check the validity of his statistics. It added: "You should have refrained from giving expert evidence upon matters beyond your competence, but this again, you failed to do."

The panel decided it was "in the public interest" to strike the paediatrician off because his breaches of the duties as an expert witness were "significant and grave". The serious and fundamental nature of his errors were further compounded by his repeated use of the erroneous statistics.

The panel therefore concluded that it was "proportionate in safeguarding the public interest and in promoting and maintaining that trust that your name be erased from the medical register".

Prof Meadow has 28 days to appeal the decision before he is struck off.

The verdict came a day after the GMC disciplinary panel found Prof Meadow had given "erroneous" and "misleading" evidence in Mrs Clark's trial in 1999. Her sons died of sudden infant death syndrome (Sids), commonly known as cot death, in the late 1990s. She served four years in jail until her convictions were quashed.

In a statement, the Clark family welcomed the decision and admonished Prof Meadow. They also urged the GMC to make changes to its disciplinary procedures that would speed up the process.

The family said: "We are pleased that, after nearly seven long years, Meadow has finally been held to account by his profession for his erroneous and misleading evidence, which we feel was primarily responsible for the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Sally.

"We hope that the GMC's findings will finally send a strong message to doctors, reminding them of the care they should take to carry out their duty to be impartial, honest and balanced when giving evidence as expert witnesses."

Prof Meadow also acted as an expert witness in the cases of Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, whose children also died of cot death and were wrongly convicted partly on the basis of his evidence.

Ms Cannings, who was cleared in 2003 of murdering two of her children, told BBC News 24 that the verdict was "fantastic, very positive news." She said: "I feel a huge relief that the GMC has made him accountable for what he has done."

George Hawks, the solicitor for Donna Anthony, said neither he nor his client took pleasure in Prof Meadow's downfall. He said: "It's never nice for anyone to have their career ruined in this way. I speak on behalf of Donna, who is not in any way vindictive towards him. All she'd ever asked was that he acknowledge that he had got it wrong, at least in her case."

The president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, Professor Sir Alan Craft, called for the role of expert witnesses in court cases to be "urgently reviewed" to restore public confidence.

He said: "What is now absolutely vital is that something good comes out of this whole episode. We need urgently to examine the role of expert witnesses in our courts and to recommend how the system can be improved. Above all else, we must re-establish confidence in the role of expert witnesses in court."

Sir Alan added that the GMC's decision to strike Prof Meadow off the register was "saddening" because during his "long and distinguished career" he had undoubtedly saved many children's lives.